[Sugar-devel] [PATCH] Implement tabs support

[Simon Schampijer]

On 06/21/2009 11:36 AM, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 10:43, Simon Schampijer<simon at schampijer.de>  wrote:
>> On 06/17/2009 07:20 PM, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> attached are two patches that add tabs to Browse. One of the is for
>>> hulahop and the other is for Browse.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Tomeu
>> Hi Tomeu,
>>
>> first - thanks for these great patches. Some high level observations:
>>
>> - they worked for me out of the box :)
>> - for me it i hard to determine which of the tabs is active at the moment -
>> the different grey colors are not really strong differentiators to me
>
> Yup, though we should fix this at the theme/engine level because we'll
> have the same issue in all our tabs. We should also have a look at the
> close icon.

Right. Seen for example the same issue in develop today.

>> - the tabs have no fixed size - long titles will have much longer tabs
>> (firefox does ellipsize - but maybe as long as we have space using it is ok
>> too)
>
> This is the default and I'm personally fine with that. Anyway,
> changing it is very easy:
>
> self.props.homogeneous = True
>
> in the TabbedView constructor.

Ok, thanks.

>> - I think it will look better when the redesign of the toolbar is happening
>> (at the moment we have tabs under tabs)
>
> Agreed. We can also put the tabs below the canvas by just
>
> self.props.tab_pos = gtk.POS_BOTTOM

Yes, nice idea.

> in the TabbedView constructor.
>
>> - we should probably have a Design meeting/discussion about it
>
> Totally, who is interested in discussing this?

Pick me, pick me! I just remembered today that we do not have a very 
good UI design situation at the moment. We really need to find ways to 
fix this for 0.86. Ideas - people interested welcome. I will note this 
down as a need for the 0.86 release.

> Would like to note that my main motivation in implementing this is not
> adding the same level of support that Firefox and other browsers have
> regarding tabs to Browse, but only to solve one of its most important
> deficiencies as many sites (including www.sugarlabs.org) break when
> you open all new windows in a dialog like we used to do before this
> patch.

Right. And those cases are fixed by tabs - which is great. Just as an 
observation from the field. I have been working in my pilot school with 
downloading things from the web and browsing etc. And so far none of the 
kids have asked for tabs. And those kids know other browsers already.

>> From my observations, tabs in browsers are an advanced feature because
> all non-technical users I know don't open tabs by themselves, just
> know tabs exist because popups open by default as new tabs.

Yup.

> So even if tabs as implemented by my patch look as something horribly
> ugly, I would recommend to not block on this and improve the looks of
> it as resources permit.

Yes, that is right. These were just some general ideas about it. I will 
do the technical part and then we can land it - and enhance over time.

Thanks,
    Simon